People who work in carpentry or machine shops frequently encounter situations where existing work stations are inadequate for supporting the particular workpiece being handled. For example, long pieces of lumber, or large sections of sheet metal or wall paneling, usually are not properly supported by the bench or table where they are being worked on by such tools as a table saw, miter saw, radial arm saw, router or the like. Under such conditions, the solo worker must seek the aid of another worker or else find some means of supporting the workpiece so that he can continue to work efficiently alone.
A common expedient in those situations is to employ a saw horse or another table if one is available and can be conveniently moved to the position where needed. Of course, such expedients can never be entirely satisfactory for reasons well-known to those skilled in the art. In addition to the problem of portability, the saw horses or supplementary tables have supporting surfaces which are fixed in height so that the workpiece being supported thereon may not be at the proper elevation for the particular work station or tool being employed. Moreover, the frictional forces resulting from the weight of a large and heavy workpiece on a stationary supporting table make it very difficult to move the workpiece and feed the same past the tool doing the work.
While there have been prior efforts to cope with the described problems by supplying a portable and adjustable workpiece support, those prior efforts have not met with complete success. In general, the prior devices of this type comprised a base which supported a vertical or angled standard having a horizontal cross member for supporting the workpiece. The supporting cross member had rollers for facilitating movement and feed of the workpiece, and the standard was adjustable in the base for achieving the desired height of the workpiece. Frequently, the means for locking the standard at the adjusted height was difficult to manipulate or resulted in an insecure lock so that the weight of a heavy workpiece on the supporting cross member might cause the standard to slip downwardly. Other problems related to cost, the rigidity of the entire structure, and the difficulty of operationally assembling the same, such devices often being sold in knocked-down form.
There thus exists a need for a support for workpieces which is relatively inexpensive and yet sturdy, simple to operate, provides a positive lock at any adjusted position, and simple to assemble when purchased in knocked-down form.